MGT380: Leadership for Organizations

Week 4

MGT380: LEADERSHIP FOR ORGANIZATIONS

MGT380: Leadership for Organizations

Week 4

WEEK FOUR OVERVIEW

Week 3 examines the challenges that leaders face regarding cultural

differences and building and maintaining a corporate culture.

• Dealing with cultural differences in both areas (of building and

maintaining) is challenging because it’s impossible to know everything

when it comes to cultural differences.

• It’s also extremely difficult to influence an organization’s culture unless

there are significant systems of checks and balances in place. We’ll

take a look at the reasons why and how to overcome the barriers.

MGT380: Leadership for Organizations

Week 4

WEEK FOUR LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Explain why it is important for leaders to be able to manage across cultures and understand cultural differences.

• Analyze how a leader interacts with corporate culture

MGT380: Leadership for Organizations

Week 4

READINGS, REQUIRED ARTICLE, AND WEBSITEReadingsRead the following chapter in An Introduction to Leadership:

1. Chapter 7: Communication2. Chapter 10: Organizational Culture

MGT380: Leadership for Organizations

Week 4

FRAME OF REFERENCE

FRAME OF REFERENCE

A frame of reference guides employees and leaders in the decision making process. It is also influenced by the employee’s or leader’s goals, resources and ethics.

Your text introduces and discusses four frames of reference.

• Structural• Human Resource• Political• Symbolic (Bolman and Deal as cited in Weiss, 2015)

STRUCTURAL

When leaders use this frame of reference they are doing so from the perspective of the organization’s structure. The emphasis of a decision or the design on a new organizational system is solely rooted on what is the best fit for the organization’s current structure of a new structural design.

The physical capital (resources), organizational goals, technology and environment all greatly valued when using this frame of reference.

HUMAN RESOURCEThe human resource frame focuses on the people by designing systems that benefit and motivate them the most. The goal of the human resource frame is to ensure that the organization’s culture and climate is conducive to the employees.

POLITICALThe political frame of reference focuses on the power structure in the organization and how to use those power structures to guide the organization. This frame of references often promotes competition as a means of motivation. Unfortunately one of the downsides to this structure is that power structures can work against one another resulting in increased difficulty achieving organizational goals.

SYMBOLICThe symbolic frame focuses on the meaning of the organizational systems and their uniqueness. For example, if an organization required it’s workers to work four days a week and the fifth day was reserved for innovation.

THE IMPORTANCE OF NAVIGATING EACH FRAMELeaders are must have the ability to understand each of these areas and they must have the ability to move from one frame of reference to another in order to effectively lead. What works for motivation for one employee may not work for another. Having the ability to move through each frame of reference will allow a leader to capitalize on the resources they have at their expense instead of having those resources work against them.

VISION, MISSION, STRATEGY

COMBINING VISION AND MISSION TO CREATE A STRATEGY

The leader is often charged with the role of carrying out an organization’s vision, mission, and strategy. Each component is a critical piece of corporate structure. Leaders must create a strategy that maximizes efficiency in order for the organization to be successful. Leaders must not only know what must occur but they must also know why.

VisionMission

Strategy

THE VISIONThe Vision creates clarity when there is uncertainty. The vision should provide a desired endpoint. The endpoint provides a context to the situation being addressed and in turn that context is used to build a strategy. Sometimes you will hear vision described as “the what” meaning “what does one want to accomplish?”

Here are some questions a vision statement should answer:

• What is the focus?• What is the goal?• What resources does the organization need for the future?• What metrics should be in place to measure progress?

THE MISSION

The mission statement delineates the purpose and objectives of the organization. The mission statement is more about current operations, quality, and methods of operation. A good mission statement provides a standard by which to align current procedures can be measured. The mission statement then is "the how" that the leader must know as well. The leader uses the mission statement to align processes and techniques to keep the course to the vision as straight as possible.

Mission statements should:• Clearly define what the organization sets out to do.• Assist leaders is developing a strategy.• Answers the “why” question when developing organizational

processes.

STRATEGYThe strategy is the actual processes that a company will use to achieve it’s goals. The strategy should reinforce both the mission and vision. The strategy should be unique the organization’s needs

MissionWho we are

VisionWhere we want to

go

StrategyThe process to get

there

WEEK 4 QUIZ

• Ensure that you complete your Week 4 you Quiz by Day 7.

FSB APA GUIDANCEPlease use the FSB APA Guidance located in your classroom.

STILL HAVE QUESTIONS ON ACADEMIC WRITING OR APA FORMATTING?https://awc.ashford.edu/Index.html

ANY QUESTIONS?

Please post your questions in the Ask the Instructor thread or e-mail your instructor directly.